London 2012 Olympics, Day 5: Bradley Wiggins puts Britain's Games on track

For four days, the Olympics had been Britain’s phoney sporting party. The
opening ceremony had raised smiles from Penzance to Perthshire and London’s
gleaming venues had not exactly lacked for sporting drama, but still the
hosts’ gold medal count read zero.

King of cool: Bradley Wiggins reflects on his achievement as he sits on his throne at Hampton CourtPhoto: EPA

The mutterings were beginning to swell and yet if there was ever going to be a day when self-doubt was going to be banished for good by Britain’s Olympic athletes, this hot, muggy Wednesday was surely it.

Bradley Wiggins, who just nine days earlier had stood atop the podium in Paris as Britain’s first Tour de France winner, was racing in the individual time-trial at Hampton Court while at the rowing venue of Eton Dorney, Helen Glover and Heather Stanning were favourites to win the women’s pairs.

Wiggo-mania was in full spate that day. Not one but two tabloid papers had independently decided to print rather stylish cut-out Wiggo sideboards for the fans to wear, while you could hardly move for Wiggo face masks in the streets around Henry VIII’s old country pile. “Here Wi-ggo” proclaimed the banners. Surely this was a banker.

Well, yes and no. Wiggins had been the class act time-trialling throughout the year, having won all six races he had contested, including the two long time-trials during the Tour de France. But this was different.

He had three gruelling weeks on the Tour de France in his legs and three days earlier had emptied the tanks trying to help Mark Cavendish to a gold medal in the men’s road race.

Reigning world champion Tony Martin had dropped out halfway through that road race, giving himself an easy day, while there was also the presence of reigning Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara to potentially spoil Britain’s party.

“The Olympic road race was a tough day, our measurements showed it was up there with a lot of the big days on the Tour, but I was confident I would recover in time,” recalls Wiggins.

“On the Tour I led out Cav in Brive the day after our final big mountain day in the Pyrénées and then won the Chartres Time Trial the next day. There was nothing to suggest I couldn’t produce one more really big performance for just under an hour at the Olympics. To be honest the Tour was just the perfect preparation, I couldn’t have been in better shape.”

And then there was the home crowd, driving him on all the way, a 44km corridor of noise, a seething mass of flag-waving humanity willing him on.

Surrey Police estimate that well over one million spectators were lining the route, completely unheard of for a time-trial. Those crowds – and those which lined the route for the men’s and women’s road races the previous weekend – played a vital role in the return of the Tour de France to England for three days in 2014.

Tour organiser Christian Prudhomme was present throughout the Olympic road-race programme and could not have been more impressed.

Wiggins the patriot was sure to react to all that energy and fervour, although he had to be careful. All year he had adopted canny tactics of going out slightly slower than in years gone by, but coming back even stronger and quicker, riding “negative” splits to use the technical jargon. Now he had to be careful not to blast off too quickly.

This, though, was a man spectacularly in the groove and he produced the perfectly balanced ride, gathering pace all the time to cover the distance in 50 mins 39.54 secs a full 42 seconds ahead of Martin, with Britain’s Chris Froome in third place.

Victory temporarily saw him become Great Britain’s most successful Olympian in history with four gold medals, a silver and two bronze medals, but Wiggins was quick to play down the significance of that.

Sir Steve Redgrave with five gold was still the top dog in estimation and Wiggins also confidently expected Sir Chris Hoy to add to his then total of four by the end of London 2012. He was not wrong.

As he sat on the mock throne at Hampton Court, Wiggins could reflect on a year of massive achievement and sacrifice from those closest to him although his wife immediately played down the latter: “Sacrifices? Well not really,” says Cath Wiggins.

“As a wife or partner, where’s the sacrifice in helping your other half fulfil their dreams? And it’s not forever, it’s short term.

"It’s not like we are a services family who are apart year after year. And they don’t earn an Olympic medal for their efforts although they bloody well deserve to. It will be nice to have him back though, we’ve been holding back but we have got some serious celebrating to do.”

Wiggins dominated the headlines the next day, but nothing should detract from the galvanising effect Glover and Stanning had provided a couple of hours earlier when they took gold in a beautifully controlled win over nearest rivals Australia at Eton.

Their victory was the first rowing gold for a British women’s team and their triumph was simply the precursor for a superb Games for Britain’s women across the board, not to mention another mighty performance by the GB rowing squad in general.

“We were mildly aware of the expectations,” Glover admitted. “We were kidding ourselves that this wasn’t happening. But as soon as we crossed the line we saw the pressure that had been upon us. We realised that people had been waiting for this. This was for the whole of the team, the whole of the country.”

The mighty roar that greeted their win by those sat in front of the big screens at Hampton Court is testimony to that. Glover and Stanning were little-known GB squad members when they were first paired together by Paul Stannard, but the chemistry was right and they instantly proved a formidable team, having won silver medals in the 2010 and 2011 World Championships and dominated the 2012 World Cup Series.

It has all happened incredibly quickly though for Glover, who comes from a hockey background.

In 2009, she was just one of 4,500 contenders being tested in groups of 200 by the Sporting Giants programme which was looking for new rowing talent, having never previously been near a rowing boat.

She recalled: “I remember sitting in a room in Bisham Abbey and someone saying, ‘A gold medallist in 2012 could be sitting in this room’. It was quite surreal.” Possibly, but that was by no means an idle boast.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“‘Sir Wiggo’ doesn’t sound right, to be honest. As much as it would be an honour to receive it, I’d just put it in a drawer.”Bradley Wiggins on the prospect of a knighthood